


of burning

by besselfcn



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Comfort Sex, F/F, Mentioned Sadie/Jake, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shady Belle chapter, background john/abigail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 05:21:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19244653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besselfcn/pseuds/besselfcn
Summary: Sadie’s never known what to do with this--the kindness Abigail offers up so easily, since the day she arrived. All the gang welcomed her in, sure, but... Abigail was different. Abigail didn’t insist she be alright; didn’t tell her to calm down; didn’t seem surprised as the grief in her heart blossomed into rage. Abigail listened. Abigail was here, in the ways that mattered.





	of burning

**Author's Note:**

> **Note:** This fic features both Abigail & Sadie discussing past sexual violence they've experienced. The scenes themselves aren't explicit but fairly stark & graphic language is used in the retelling/flashbacks.

Sadie doesn’t talk about it.

She’ll talk about her husband, when she can. She misses the hell out of him, and talking about him makes him feel not so far away. She’ll talk about her home. How things used to be. She’ll talk about how much she hates those men. She’ll talk about what she’ll do one day, when she finds them again.

But there’s a whole chasm of things she doesn’t talk about.

Then she wakes up one day in Shady Belle _aching,_ and thinking of Jake, and warm all over, and she gets as far as grinding the heel of her palm between her legs to relieve the pressure before cold nausea rolls over her and she scrambles out of bed to the door to vomit.

“Fuck,” she whispers, and then, for good measure, picks up a rock off the ground and hurls it into the river while spitting, again, “ _Fuck!_ ”

It doesn’t necessarily make her feel better, but it doesn’t make her feel worse.

She rinses her mouth out with icy cold water from the basin. She ties her hair back up. She walks inside and goes to bed.

Well--she tries. She means to go back to her room, but without thinking she finds herself nudging open the door to Abigail’s room.

Abigail’s eyes flutter open; they find Sadie’s and Abigail immediately starts slipping out of John’s arms, brow furrowing into concern.

“Sorry, you get back to sleep,” Sadie whispers, but Abigail’s already shooing her back, pulling the door shut behind them.

“What happened, you look pale as a sheet,” Abigail whispers. “C’mon, sit down, talk to me.”

Sadie’s never known what to do with this--the kindness Abigail offers up so easily, since the day she arrived. All the gang welcomed her in, sure, but... Abigail was _different_. Abigail didn’t insist she be alright; didn’t tell her to calm down; didn’t seem surprised as the grief in her heart blossomed into rage. Abigail listened. Abigail was _here_ , in the ways that mattered.

And when they sit down on Sadie’s bed and Sadie pulls a bottle of whiskey from under the mattress, Abigail doesn’t say anything except _hand that over, when you’re done with it_.

That’s all they do, for a moment. Sit and drink whiskey and listen to the sounds of the swamp outside. Sadie’d never known that a place could _sound_ sticky until they came to Lemoyne.

Then she swallows, and turns to Abigail, and says, “Can I ask you a terrible question?”

Abigail shrugs. “Can’t be worse than anything John’s said to me,” she says, and smiles, and then her face softens and she nods.

“You….” Sadie winces. “You used to be a whore, yeah?”

Abigail raises an eyebrow. “That’s what they tell me.”

“Sorry, I. I’m just wonderin’. You ever had any men--you ever have them go too far, that kind of thing?”

There’s a silence long enough Sadie thinks she’s made the worst kind of judgment error; she’s ready to tell Abigail she’s sorry and head back to bed til she either falls asleep or the sun comes up, likely the latter, and then--

“Sometimes,” Abigail says. “Usually wasn’t that big of a deal. Some men got pushy, is all, I’d tell ‘em to lighten up and they wouldn’t. I didn’t get bothered much by those.” She looks at Sadie, and Sadie _knows_ that crease in her brow, the cautious look in her eye. Sadie sees it all the damn time in the mirror these days. The desire and the fear of cracking your chest open in front of someone else.

“There was this one time, though,” Abigail says slow, like the story’s unfamiliar in her mouth. “I didn’t like the look of this man came up tried to pay me for my time, so I told him I had an arrangement already. Well, he wasn’t much appreciative of that. Waited ‘til I went to the washroom on my own and pulled me to the floor. Held me down by my hair. Took what it was he’d wanted and left me so bruised up I spent the next couple days feeling sorry for myself in bed.”

Abigail smooths her hair out with her hands, and they’re shaking. Sadie feels her empty stomach twisting.

“Still don’t like it when John messes with my hair,” she says. “He don’t know why, though. Just thinks I’m particular about it.”

Sadie feels like the room is spinning, or like she’s spinning, and she realizes she hasn’t taken a deep breath in too long and she gasps and oh, great, there’s the tears, flowing hot and angry down her cheeks so fast she doesn’t even bother wiping them away.

Abigail puts a hand on her back and rubs circles into it like a child and she says, “It’s okay, Sadie, you can tell me.”

Sadie gasps again, and when she exhales the words come spilling out.

Everything she hasn’t wanted to say; everything she’s been pressing down; everything she hoped would be crushed under the weight of the rest of it, she tells Abigail everything, everything. Whatever she can make out through the gasps.

The basement. The men. Their hands. The smell of beer. Of burning. The pain, the endless spiral that she fell into. Not knowing if she was awake or asleep and knowing it didn’t matter because they were there, either way, under her clothes, under her skin. _Your husband ever fuck you this good, you stupid fucking cunt?_ Glass in her knees. Water in her lungs. _Don’t matter now, he ain’t ever gonna again, unless you want us to bring him down here and let you fuck his corpse._ No, no, no, no, no, no, _no_ , and screaming it til she went raw because if she was screaming she was alive, she was alive, she had to keep reminding herself she was still alive--

“And then I wake up here,” Sadie rasps, “middle of the fucking night, and you know what my brain’s thinking? _I want Jake to touch me_.”

The tears stopped at some point. She only notices when she goes to wipe them from her cheeks and they’re dry.

The air feels too thick. Her hands feel like they aren’t her own. But her chest feels lighter than it has in months.

“Sadie,” Abigail says. “You’re a survivor, girl, that’s for sure.”

She just laughs. Is she? Is this surviving? Dragging herself through the days in hopes she’ll go down swinging? What kind of a life is just _surviving_ , anyway?

Abigail’s hand is still on her back. She leans into it; the touch that feels white-hot even through her nightshirt. Her eyes close.

“What do you need, Sadie,” Abigail’s voice asks, like it isn’t a question at all.

“Touch me,” Sadie says, without letting herself think. “Please. I don’t want to feel them anymore.”

Abigail’s hand keeps circling on her back, but she doesn’t move otherwise. “You sure?” she asks, but it isn’t accusatory. Firm. Warm. Like the rest of her.

“Please,” Sadie says again. She wants to melt into Abigail. She wants to stop wanting anything at all.

“This ain’t gonna fix everything, you know,” Abigail warns.

“I know,” Sadie insists, and she does, she knows this is something she carries in her now, chasm or not, but for a moment, for just _now_ , she wants Abigail to smother it.

“If you want me to stop, you tell me, and I’ll stop,” Abigail promises, and then she’s pulling Sadie into her lap and Sadie’s skin feels on fire again.

This is how Abigail touches her--Sadie sitting with her back pressed against Abigail’s chest, Abigail’s hand sliding down the front of Sadie’s underwear. The other hand gentle on Sadie’s hip, rubbing slow circles with her thumb. Gentle. Light. Sadie can get up any moment she wants; she can push away; she can run. She can. But she won’t.

She leans back into Abigail, head on her shoulder, breathes in the smell of soap and stale perfume. Abigail’s fingers circle her clit, and she doesn’t press too hard, and Sadie’s legs kick without her meaning to and she shudders, gasping, as the heat builds and builds and she tips into an orgasm that crashes over her body in waves.

“Abigail,” she says, like she’s drunk, like it’s the only thing she wants to say anymore. “Abigail.”

“I got you,” Abigail says, and she holds Sadie, arms around her waist. and rocks with her gently. “You sleep now. I got you.”

Sadie sleeps, dreamless.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on twitter @besselfcn


End file.
